Izmir, Turkey (April 2, 2022) - LANDCOM hosted NATO Army Armaments Group's Land Capability Group (LCG) Conference on Dismounted Soldier Systems (DSS) from March 28th to April 1st, 2022 at the Marriot hotel in Izmir, Turkey. The intent of this conference is to support NATO allies and partners to achieve the objectives of NATO Land Forces armaments cooperation by focusing on everything a dismounted Soldier wears, carries, and consumes to fulfill their tasks.
"The modern battlefield is continuously evolving due to new, disruptive technologies - many of which are non-kinetic and hybrid," said LANDCOM Chief of Staff, Turkish Army MGEN Mustafa Oğuz, during his opening remarks. "We must be postured and prepared to combat these gray zone areas of conflict by providing cutting-edge support to our most valuable asset on the battlefield: the dismounted soldier."
The five day event included representatives from 18 allied nations and 3 partner nations: Finland, Sweden and Ukraine. These soldier experts shared details of their nations equipment procurements and fielding as well as refining their plans based on developing NATO programs.
"This is a meeting of an existing, decades-old committee," said Mr. Osman Tasman, Land Armaments Coordinator of NATO's Defense Investment Division. "An aim of this committee is to make the Alliance and single security entity partly through standardization of our equipment. It is a good information exchange."
"We chose to do this meeting at LANDCOM in Turkey because this headquarters will oversee and implement the standards achieved here," said Magnus Hallberg, NATO LCG Chairman and Swedish Armed Forces representative.
"This also gives an opportunity to Turkish industry to present themselves, which is very welcomed by this community," Mr. Tasman added.
The conference promotes interoperability of the alliance and partner armed forces by means of information exchange, material standardization, and cooperative activities.
